Rota
Apple Music, living on your desktop. An artwork-first widget with synced lyrics — free, native and open source. rota · Latin for “wheel”.
$ brew install --cask aalemoro/tap/rota --no-quarantine
macOS 14+ · unzip & drag to Applications also works — first launch: right-click → Open
Three native sizes. At rest, every one of them is pure album art — controls fade in on hover.
Why you'll keep it on screen
The cover is the interface
Edge-to-edge artwork melting into frosted glass, exactly like Apple Music's MiniPlayer — and when your mouse is away, it's just the album, like a photo widget.
Synced lyrics
Karaoke-style highlighting that scrolls with the song, via the open LRCLIB database. Click any line to jump right there.
Behaves like a real widget
Sits above the wallpaper under your windows, snaps into the native widget grid, comes in the three official sizes, survives reboots.
Gallery widget included
A true WidgetKit widget you add from right-click → Edit Widgets, with working play/pause and skip buttons.
Fast to drive
Keyboard shortcuts, a draggable seek bar, and a scriptable rota:// URL scheme for Raycast, Shortcuts and friends.
Private by design
No account, no analytics. Only track metadata leaves your Mac — to fetch lyrics and missing covers over HTTPS.